This invention relates generally to financial transactions and more particularly to transactions involving credit or debit cards.
The time is fast approaching where a significant amount of commerce will be conducted using distributed networks of computers such as the Internet. The reason this ground-swell of commerce will occur is the ability of a single merchant to economically reach a vast number of potential customers at substantially no costs. Further, the customers are able to review a great number of vendors and their products with the ease of a few key strokes and clicks of the mouse.
Although there are vast numbers of merchants already using such networks, the sales volume has been particularly low due to a variety of reasons. One reason which has depressed commerce on the networks, is the difficulty with which customers can pay for their purchases.
A variety of techniques have been developed to cure this problem ranging from accepting phone orders to the establishment of another currency called "E-Cash".
Phone orders in response to merchant promotional materials creates a variety of problems. One major problem is the requirements for phone lines and personnel to receive and process the phone orders. Another hurdle is the simple fact that most customers have a single phone line to their residence and this line is used by the computer for accessing the network; the customer has to disconnect from the network to make the phone order.
Although E-Cash is a viable alternative, it is faced with some enormous problems which will be difficult or impossible to address. These include: counterfeiting problems; government reluctance to accept the concept; difficulties in getting access for handling E-Cash; and, the low number of users and merchants which can use E-Cash.
It is clear from the foregoing that there is a need for an efficient methodology and system to accept payment over distributed computer networks.